1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a Flat Panel Display (FPD) and method of fabrication and, more particularly, to an FPD having a structure capable of preventing static electricity, and to a method of fabrication.
2. Description of the Related Art
A display, which is an interface between a variety of electronic devices and a person, converts electrical signals output from electronic devices to patterned information that the person can visually recognize and displays the information.
A Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) is a typical display, but more attention has recently been paid to Flat Panel Displays (FPDs), such as a Plasma Display Panel (PDP), a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), and an Organic Light Emitting Display (OLED) because they are light-weight and ultra-thin, have low power consumption, and have High Definition (HD).
The LCD or OLED is typically used as a display for a small-sized electronic device and includes a display portion, an external circuit, and a bracket formed as a module.
In the small-sized electronic device, static electricity can adversely affect the display, i.e., the LCD or OLED. In the LCD, liquid crystals have an orientation controlled by an applied electric field and optical transmittance is controlled by the liquid crystal orientation to display an image. If static electricity affects the liquid crystals, the electric field is not properly applied, so that unit pixels of the LCD can be destroyed.
Above all, in an In-Plan-Switch (IPS)-mode LCD driven by a lateral electric field, once static electricity has been generated on the surface of the LCD, the lateral electric field is destroyed by the static electricity. Thus, liquid crystals in a portion where static electricity is generated react due to an electric field caused by the static electricity, thereby resulting in failures of pixels of the LCD.
To solve these problems, Korean Patent Registration No. 10-0325064, entitled “Method for Discharging Static Electricity in Liquid Crystal Display”, teaches a conductive polymer network formed in a liquid crystal cell of an LCD. However, since this method includes a process of mixing liquid crystals with a polymer material and a process of curing the resultant mixture, the entire fabricating process becomes complicated, and the mixing process can have a bad influence on the liquid crystals.